Alex Gopher - You My Baby And I

Personnel: Alex Gopher (vocals, various instruments); Michael "Clip" Payne, Joe Eppart, Sarah Traeger, Flash Payne, Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, Gael Barbieri, Hamid Sadji, Rachel Sunmoon (vocals); Mike Birbaum (guitar); J.B. Dunckel (keyboards). YOU MY BABY & I is a funk album in the vein of Daft Punk and Air--in other words, it incorporates equal parts ambient, dance, and electronic, and then slathers the result in samples and some phat bass sounds. The tracks feature cool, unexpected hooks snapping around a pretty wicked rhythm section--especially on "With U." Given what follows it, the album opens somewhat oddly, with the first track, "Time," suggesting a kind of Lenny Kravitz funk-rock but without the Hendrix riffs and flourishes. The album's best track is "The Child," a fairly impressive attempt to move Billie Holiday into '90s-style ambient funk, via a groovy, shimmering beat and a huge sample of her classic standard "God Bless the Child." Gopher uses samples in a similar manner on several other track... Minimize